Critical Questions, New Imaginaries and Social Activism: A Reader

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Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Care and Education is a foundational text, which presents contemporary theories and debates about early education and child care in many nations. The authors selected are leading contributors in discussions about critical early childhood studies over the past twenty years; the editors are long-time scholars in the reconceptualizing early childhood movement. Audiences include students in graduate courses focused on early childhood and primary education, critical cultural studies of childhood, critical curriculum studies and critical theories that have been contested and debated and drawn from over the course of two decades. The book is filled with recent scholarship by leading authors in the reconceptualization and rethinking of childhood studies and early childhood fields, who discuss foundational debates, new imaginaries in theory and practice and activist scholarship. A must-read for graduate students and professionals interested in beginning or continuing critical interrogations of current early childhood policy and reforms globally.

Section I: Foundational Debates and Continuing Questions

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Section I Foundational Debates and Continuing Questions One Interrogating Reconceptualizing Early Care and Education (RECE)—20 Years Along Marianne N. Bloch1 While some of the history of the first Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Education (RECE) Conference was initiated in 1991 as a tentative start for new discussions, critique, and presentation of then-marginalized approaches to research, theory, policy, and pedagogy, it was hardly the begin- ning of these debates, nor, of course, is it the end—as this volume illustrates well. In this chapter, I present a form of history of the RECE Conference, illustrate some of the key questions we asked, and, finally, continue to ask questions and interrogate where we’ve “been” and where we might move. Thus, this is a history that draws upon my memories and reflections, as well as events that, though incompletely discussed or illustrated, I have constructed as important. A framework for reading this chapter: histories are not linear, nor are they “truth” (Foucault, 1980). They involve memories and forgettings, intentional and without seeming intention. In addition, following Scott (1991) and Butler (1993, 2004) “experience” as well as identity(es) are contingently situated and related or performed in the discursive moment in which “experience” or storytelling (in this case) happens. As I narrate this story, therefore, please see the narrative as non- linear, with ruptures, and that different discursive moments may account in ways I or “we” (then and now) think, act, and write. Brief Overview of RECE’s Early Days/Years Therefore, drawing from my memories (and...

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